knb comments on Hayekian Prediction Markets? - Less Wrong
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Focusing on success stories of Capitalist growth (Western Europe and East Asia) and not on global average is simply wrong.
South Korea and West Germany are atypically good performers for Capitalist world, which has its growth failure stories like India, Indonesia, Peru, Chile, Argentina, UK, and New Zealand (going from extreme poor to extreme rich).
The paper does not include North Korea, but it's so atypical for a "Communist" country it really shouldn't be treated as one - it is more like an isolationist militaristic monarchy.
Most of those countries were not capitalist, but rather socialist mixed economies. New Zealand is actually rather capitalistic, and has respectable growth for an advanced economy and persistent low unemployment, so I'm not sure what you're getting at there. Here's Wikipedia on India:
India liberalized starting in the 1980s but mostly since 1991. Growth accelerated rapidly after the state declared bankruptcy (basically) in 1990 and liberalization began. When Chile liberalized its economy, it went from one of the poorest to the wealthiest country in Latin America, which strongly refutes your hypothesis.
Dividing countries into two categories, as TGGP says, is not the best option. Most countries aren't fully capitalist or communist but rather a mix. On the one extreme you have countries like Singapore, Switzerland and Hong Kong, on the other you have North Korea.